"I relapsed after 10 years in program and was in a relapse for about 16 years. Here's what I have learned and it's just my 2%, so take what you like and leave the rest.
In relapse the food is the LAST to go. Usually it's the spiritual first and then the emotional and then the physical.
Don't try to figure it out and rehash it cause you will waste days/years trying and your HP already gave you an answer when you walked through the doors. Just take it a day at a time and get back in to your routine even if every fiber of your being is screaming telling you not to, or it won't work, etc.
I don't think I out grew OA, I think the fire in my belly had to come back and it did when I quit trying to make the meetings my way and the people my way and the day of the meeting my way and the time my way and when I quit trying to make diets (the new ones I hadn't tried yet) work. Diets are no defense against the disease, PERIOD!
Then I had to get extremely humble, (because in the past I was Ms.OA and knew it all), and call and ask someone to sponsor me. Someone I knew would not bull me and that she would tell me like it is. I knew this person would never be the one who was standing over my grave saying, "Gosh, if I had just told her the truth." She tells the truth to me and that's what I need cause my disease wants me dead, or incapacitated in some manner.
Then, I had to make, "Abstinence the most important thing in my life without exception." Here's an example, last night I put my food in a crock pot and cooked it and I also prepared many other dishes so when I come home from work and my disease greets me at the door, cause the bum is always greeting me at the back-door, my food will be ready. I also worked the steps again and I went to meetings each day that their were ones.
The results to quote John Denver, "Some days are diamonds and some days are stones". Mostly, they are diamonds now.
So, I'll cut to the chase. STOP what you are doing in relapse and immerse yourself in OA and the Steps and the Tools. The fire WILL come back in your belly! Or...you can continue trying to figure it out." - Jeanine (in MI) Jan.25,2005.
